1.
What is Psychology
2. What Is Psychotherapy
3. Facts of Hypnotherapy
4. NLP What is it
Psychology:
This had happened to me so many times that I have come to anticipate
it. Upon hearing that I am a psychologist people tend to have
one of the two reactions. They would either mocking being in awe:
"Ho, no, watch out, she is going to read out minds."
Or, they will jokingly tell me that a psychologist is just the
person they need, because there are many people around here that
have "problems". I do not mind this, really. Although
it certainly shows how little the lay people know about our profession,
in a way, it also shows their high regards towards what they think
we are capable of. But I do want to take the opportunity to clarify
issues and answer questions for lay people, as well as for students
considering joining the profession. I will do it in a FAQ format.
Q:
What is a psychologist?
A:
A person who holds either a Ph.D. (Doctorate of Philosophy) in
psychology, an Ed.D. (Doctorate of Education) in psychology, or
a Psy.D. (Doctorate of Psychology).
Q:
Can psychologists read people's mind?
A:
No, we can not.
Q:
Do psychologists treat mental disorder and abnormal behaviour?
A:
Some do. Some don't. For example, as a social psychologist, I
study how normal people's think and behave in social situations.
Often it is just average folks in an everyday situation, such
as in a work group, at a party, or with a date.
Q:
What about those psychologists that do treat people with mental
disorders or psychological problems.
A:
They are called clinical or counselling psychologists. To be a
practicing clinical or counselling psychologist, one needs a doctoral
degree plus proper licensing. Information about psychology licensure
is available online.
Q:
Are there also psychiatrists?
A:
Yes, psychiatrists also treat the mentally ill. But they are not
psychologists. They are medical doctors (M.D.). Like your family
doctor, they obtained their MD by going to medical schools, in
stead of graduate schools. The difference is that after medical
school, they have done a 3-year residency in psychiatry, where
they learnt to diagnose and treat mental illness, often by using
medicine.
Q:
How about people with Master's degrees in psychology? Can they
be called psychologists.
A:
The title "Psychologists" are usually reserved for individuals
with doctoral degrees. People with Master's degrees in clinical
or counselling psychology can become "counselors" and
"therapists".
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What
is Psychotherapy:
Psychotherapy covers the psychological treatment of a wide range
of mental and physical ills by a number of different methods,
each developed in terms of its own theoretical framework.Such
treatment is carried out with individual patients or clients,
with groups of patients and with children as well as adults.
Methods vary from a long series
of intimate discussions extending over two or three years, to
only one or two intense interviews. Group treatment may consist
of acting out problems or the encouragement of expression of inhibited
emotions within the therapeutic group. The Society view is that
psychotherapy, as well as the use of hypnosis with psychotherapy,
is most appropriately regarded as a post-qualification specialization
for members of one of the primary professional groups such as
medical practitioners, applied psychologists or social workers.
Such people are more likely to
interact in the development of psychological problems and to have
a sufficient range of professional experience and skills to judge
when a potential client might be more appropriately helped by
other methods. The advice to psychology graduates wishing to train
as psychotherapists is that they should first acquire a relevant
basic professional training in another area of applied psychology
or other relevant profession, and to follow this with a post-qualification
training in psychotherapy.
The Society approves some post-qualification
courses in psychological therapy, and such courses are usually
advertised in The Psychologist. However, some psychology graduates
may wish to train in psychotherapy without a professional training
in applied psychology. The Society cannot provide information
about suitable courses and does not accredit training courses
in psychotherapy for people who are not already Chartered Psychologists.
Such graduates should contact
the British Association for counselling and the UK Council for
Psychotherapy. Intending applicants for private psychotherapy
training should be aware that some bodies offer clearly inadequate
training (for example, applicants should be able to recognize
that training lasting only a few weeks is unlikely to be sufficient).
The following questions may be useful to consider when looking
at a course in psychotherapy:
Is the course prospectus detailed
enough to indicate the objects, methods and orientation?
Is the course long enough, and
the amount of supervised experience sufficient?
What are the qualifications of
the course organizers and supervisors?
Is supervision of therapy provided
to trainees individually (or at least in pairs) on a regular basis?
Does the course have a formal
and externally validated method of assessing trainees competence?
Has the course been approved by
an accredited body other than the organization running it?
Currently there is no registration
or licensing of psychotherapists in the UK, and so there are no
specific qualifications required for private practice. Public
employing authorities each have their own regulations. The NHS
has posts for child psychotherapists and the Association of Psychotherapists
is the appropriate body to advise on training; there are no NHS
posts for adult psychotherapists other than those for psychiatric
psychotherapists or clinical psychologists specialising in psychotherapy.
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Everything
you wanted to Know about Hypnotherapy!
"What is hypnosis?"
It is not sleep, but a natural,
normal, relaxed and focused state of attention characterized by:
Feelings of well-being Increased
muscle relaxation Increased pain threshold Predominating Alpha
Brain Waves Diminished ability to vocalize Flashback access of
stressful memories Literal, childlike understanding of ideas Ability
to accept new ideas about yourself if they are emotionalised and
not in conflict with your values. Simply put, hypnosis is either
interactive guided imagery or applied meditation toward a specific
goal while in various levels of a trance state.
"How do I know
if I can be hypnotized?"
There are only three types of
people that cannot be hypnotized:
1. A person in a psychotic process
or with a thought disorder
2. A person with a low IQ
3. A person who really does not
want to be hypnotized If you can focus your attention, use your
imagination, and desire to be hypnotized, you can enter at least
a light state of hypnosis anytime you wish. Actually, hypnotisability
is a sign of intelligence and was used extensively by such brilliant
authors as Aldous Huxley. Learn to navigate in that "in-between",
dream-like state, which is part of the normal repertory of human
consciousness, and you will be amazed at your hidden abilities
and strengths! In a private session, it just becomes a question
of how deep are you willing to go in the presence of another person.
(The biggest hypnotizer of all time is television. And with 60%
of TV commercials about junk food, it is no wonder why so many
Americans are overweight. To find out more how hypnosis will help
you Release Weight using positive imagery
"What does hypnosis
feel like?"
It feels like in the morning when
you hit the snooze button on your alarm, and you are aware of
yourself lying in your bed with eyes closed, not quite asleep,
but not quite awake either. The subconscious is the seat of intuition
and creativity; that is why some writers or painters do their
best work in the early morning.
Their subconscious is closer to
the surface then, especially after dreaming in REM sleep. (REM
often occurs in hypnosis.) Even with eyes wide open some people
go into "highway hypnosis" and drive right past their
exit. Generally, you can feel hypnotic relaxation in your body
in some way; either your limbs will feel heavy, like lead or light
and tingly, almost numb. (You don't need to get hooked up to some
silly "biofeedback machine" to learn this about yourself!)
Sometimes a good indicator of deep hypnotic relaxation is experiencing
slight twitches in your body as your nervous system "reboots"
and you shift to abdominal (parasympathetic) breathing. Recognizing
these sensations is the best biofeedback you could ever have!
"Is hypnosis
dangerous?"
Absolutely not. Hypnosis was approved
by the Council of Mental Health of the American Medical Association
in September of 1958 as a safe practice with no harmful side effects.
To date, no one has been seriously hurt with hypnosis. We greatly
underestimate the ability of the subconscious to protect itself.
The only dangers are in misconceptions promoted by fundamentalist
religious leaders who wish to frighten and disempower their followers.
Fear and ignorance have caused more people to hurt themselves
and/or others, even while wide awake, than would ever occur in
a hypnotherapy session.
"Can I be made
to do things against my will?"
Again, Absolutely not. You could
never be made to do anything against your will or contrary to
your value system. You would not unknowingly reveal your deepest
secrets either; it is even possible to lie in hypnosis, which
is why testimony while in hypnosis is not permissible evidence
in a court of law. A person will only act upon suggestions that
serve them in some way or reinforce an expected behaviour, anything
else their subconscious will just ignore. Most people develop
these misperceptions from seeing or hearing about a Stage Hypnosis
show, which, you must understand, is done for entertainment purposes
only.
"How long will
it take before I notice a change?"
In one session, you can expect
to become more relaxed than you are right now. That in itself
can be a big change! If you can agree that the ability to intentionally
relax yourself is an important first step towards improving your
health and mental focus, then in one session at least you will
learn how to do that.
The inherently hypnotic and creative
"positive imaging" process helps lift your goal out
of the ineffectual, hazy, "just a concept" realm and
focuses your goal into a decisive aim. Hypnosis can bridge that
gap between the head and the heart, making your goal much more
emotionally compelling, and thus setting the stage for lasting
change. Depending upon the intensity of your session or the number
of times you have listened to your audio tape, (you should expect
to listen to a reinforcement tape for at least a month), you will
notice suggestions for the desired behavioural changes spontaneously
popping into your conscious mind almost immediately.
Your subconscious mind will attempt
to prompt you out of your old patterns with these cues. In other
words, your conscience will "wake up" to the habit.
This is the first step in reprogramming yourself. Next, it is
up to you to get real with yourself and act on those cues. "To
be or not to be, that is the question", wrote Shakespeare.
In many respects, hypnosis is about being more awake, but in a
relaxed way. (Ever notice how just talking about a weight problem
usually creates lots of tension and anxiety?)
"Does hypnosis
weaken the will?"
Absolutely not. You will not develop
a dependency on the Hypnotherapist, either, since hypnotherapy
is a short-term, goal-orientated therapy. These misperceptions
are sometimes expounded by unenlightened Yoga teachers, which
play upon some people's fear of loss of control; they do not understand
that hypnosis is in fact a tool to gain more self-control and
can actually help improve one's meditation practice!
"Can hypnosis
make me want to exercise or stop eating sugar?"
When a person asks me this, I
ask them, "Are you really ready to change?" Because
hypnosis cannot make you want do something that you really don't
want to do. Otherwise, hypnosis would be a waste of both our time.
A person could not be hypnotized to run a marathon, unless they
already were a runner. A Sports Hypnotherapist can help a good
athlete stay focused on becoming a better one, but the athlete
must already be making efforts towards their goal. There is no
easy substitute for practice. In other words, hypnosis can give
an athlete the mental edge that could make the difference between
a silver and a gold medal. It's all about focus.
More on Hypnotherapy
In the 1800's, hypnosis was widely
practiced by physicians, particularly in Europe.
In days before drugs were part
of the arsenal of physicians, it was used as an anaesthetic and
analgesic. Various forces led to its going underground--or actually
"on stage," since stage hypnotists kept it alive during
the early part of this century. Undoubtedly the widespread availability
of chemical anaesthesia and analgesics was a strong factor.
"Queen Victoria had chloroform
for delivery of her third child. Overnight, hypnosis was out,"
says Emil Spillman, MD, a pathologist who has practiced and taught
medical hypnosis for decades. Another strong factor in its demise
as a therapeutic tool was Freud's disenchantment with it. Freud
admits in his writings that he is not very good at hypnosis---undoubtedly
one reason he quit using it. But he also, according to Dr. Spillman,
was concerned about "symptom substitution," the belief
that if you removed a symptom, it might be replaced by something
worse.
Dr. Spillman's own experience
with thousands of patients over 25 years is that "this doesn't
happen." If a patient's symptom (for example, migraine headache---Dr.
Spillman believes 95% of these are curable with hypnosis) is associated
with a highly emotional event in his/her past, hypnosis can remove
the symptom permanently, with no side effects. But if the symptom
is a way of coping with a trauma that is current in the person's
life---for example, a bad marriage---"the hypnosis simply
will not work without dealing with the trauma itself." The
idea that hypnosis is harmful has now been discounted. David Spiegel,
MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences
at Stanford University School of Medicine, put it this way: Physicians
often worry that hypnosis involved significant risks to patients.
Actually, the phenomenon is not dangerous and has fewer side effects
than even the most benign medications.
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The
Facts on NLP
These are answers from Richard Bandler, creator of Neuro-Linguistic
Programming
1. What is NLP™?
Neuro-Linguistic Programming™
is "The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience and
what can be calculated from it."
2. What is NLP™
technology?
NLP™ is based on finding
out what works and formalizing it. In order to formalize patterns
I utilized everything from linguistics to holography. I didn't
just elicit peoples' strategies since when I started out there
weren't any strategies, yet. I invented them. Strategies are a
model.
A strategy is just that, a strategy.
I think it is important for people to make a distinction between
a model and a technique. A model (like Strategies, Sub modalities,
Anchoring, Trans derivational Search, Chaining States, the Meta
Model™, Meta Programs, Semantic Primes, Semantic Density,
etc.) will allow you to create new techniques. The techniques
generated from these models are techniques, nothing more.
When people discover what someone
they consider to be a genius or expert does inside their head
in order to perform a task exceptionally well using the models
of NLP™, what they've discovered is not a new model. It
is a strategy. The sequencing of various aspects of the models
that constitute NLP™ in order to change someone's internal
representations is called a technique.
A model is a formal representation
of behaviour that allows prediction. Models are most commonly
used in physics, e.g., in order to predict the rate of distribution
of one liquid within another as well as how much movement the
added liquid will have if poured from 2 inches above a beaker
with a 2 inch diameter. The models that constitute NLP™
are all formal models based on mathematical, logical principles
such as predicate calculus and the mathematical equations underlying
holography.
Furthermore, all of these models
are generative, e.g., when challenging one Meta Model™ distinction,
the answer will always be a surface structure containing further
Meta-Model™ distinctions. They are also recursive, i.e.,
the model can be applied to itself, e.g., you can use the Milton
Model in order to define and utilize the distinctions described
in The Hypnotic Patterns of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Vol. 1 in
order to understand how the book uses the principles described
therein in order to teach them, i.e. it defines itself. These
distinctions will help people understand the difference between
what a model and a technique is.
3. How are the NLP™
building blocks such as calibration techniques, patterns in the
language someone uses, predicates and Meta Model™, eye movements
and Sub modalities, other analytical models such as Logical levels,
Meta-programs, perceptual positions, timeframe's, etc. used to
observe experts?
These tools were not developed
in order to observe experts. They were discovered by observing
experts. They were developed in order to further evolve human
consciousness to the point that people could replicate skills
and have deliberate control over their own consciousness. Nothing
in NLP™ is analytical. It is all designed to be applied.
If you do not know how to apply something that you learn as "NLP™"
then, it is either not NLP™ or you have a bad teacher.
I think the best example of this
misunderstanding is Meta-Programs. I've had people tell me that
someone is a visual who sorts towards. That can't be true because
if you ask a person to make a picture of themselves brushing their
teeth with a toothbrush they just wiped their behind with, they
probably won't move towards that. Most of you would probably say,
"Yuck!" and move away from doing that. (If you behave
in the previously described manner. STOP IT! It's not a good idea.)
Meta Programs describe how people sort through multiple generalizations.
As such, they will tell you what lies inside and what lies outside
of someone's generalizations about things like doors.
When someone says, "Stupid
door!", that gives you a pretty good idea about what lies
outside their generalizations about what doors "are".
If you then ask them how they know the door is "stupid",
they'll give you an answer that will identify their "sorting
style", i.e., "There's no knob," meaning that it
can only be a not-stupid-door if it has a knob. If what they want
is to be able to open more kinds of doors, then you have to teach
them to sort for things other than just a knob in order to identify
a door. That's how Meta-Programs work. They don't just describe
someone diagnostically. They give you something to do. NLP™
consists of models. By applying these models one can generate
techniques. The models are patterns. As such, they will be true
100% of the time. That is why statistics don't apply.
4. What can I do with
NLP™?
There are many areas in which
NLP™ has been utilized. Whatever your profession is, you
can use NLP™ to build on whatever it is you are already
doing.
5. What are typical
NLP™ applications?
Collapsing Anchors, Visual Squash,
6-step Re framing, V/K dissociation, Change Personal History,
Belief Change, Re imprint (all which are sometimes called NLP™),
are some of the techniques that were derived from applying the
models.
6. Isn't NLP™
mainly used for therapy and that's where the procedures came from?
I have never once called anything
I do a "procedure". I call them techniques or exercises.
It's important to emphasize that NLP™ is an educational
tool, not a form of therapy. We don't do therapy. We teach people
some things about how their brains function and they use this
information in order to change.
7. What are the best
products and applications for business?
I have no idea what some of these
products are. Once again, I think it is important for people to
understand the distinction between a model and a technique. To
use "products" also seems slightly misleading as I personally
have used more of these simple things in business environments.
I have used everything from strategies and anchoring to the Meta
Model™ and Milton Model. Understanding board meetings seems
to me to be the same as understanding how a family functions.
I've done things like change where people sit at a table and change
the outcome of the meeting.
8. What about enhancing
creativity?
I think the more you want to become
more and more creative you have to not only elicit other peoples'
(plural) strategies and replicate them yourself, but also modify
others' strategies and have a strategy that creates new creativity
strategies based on as many wonderful states as you can design
for yourself. Therefore, in a way, the entire field of NLP™
is a creative tool, because I wanted to create something new.
9. What about learning
strategies?
Which learning strategies are
useful in which contexts? What if we design new, more intense
states and used those as the basis upon which we learn? All the
models and techniques can be of use in many areas or professions.
None of these areas are different from one another once you denominalize
the words, i.e. "therapy, creativity, learning, business."
10. What is the best
progression for learning NLP™; is it to attend a Practitioner
program, then a Master Practitioner , then a Trainer?
None of these are the only way
to learn NLP™ nor necessarily the best for any one person.
The learning strategy they engage in will determine how they learn,
but as we know, those aren't set in stone. It isn't necessary
that people go in any particular order. I know that some people
make you do them in that order, but they are, as I originally
designed them, different courses which cover different material
and I know that learning doesn't come in levels, because, if it
did, you would all have to have my personal history up to 1975
in order to use the Meta Model™ and that just isn't the
case.
There are also introduction courses,
Design Human Engineering™ courses, business and personal
consulting, Personal Enhancement Courses, NLP™ as an application
to Hypnosis, Sales courses, etc.
11. Can you recommend
some good NLP™ books & tapes?
I recommend reading Persuasion
Engineering™, The Structure of Magic Vol. I, and Vol. II,
Time For A Change. Magic In Action II, Using Your Brain For A
Change, Patterns of Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson
Vol I & Vol. II, as well as The Adventures of Anybody. I also
recommend reading the texts listed in the bibliography of The
Structure of Magic I. The tapes I recommend include Patterns of
Persuasion, Design Human Engineering™, Hypnosis in Munich
(unedited), Personal Enhancement Series (The Neurosonics Tapes),
The BarbizonTapes, and The NeuroSynchronizer. Most of these products
can be purchased through NLP™ Seminars Group International's
Book & Tape Catalog.
12. What are the roots
of NLP™?
Any references to the early work
can be found in the bibliography to The Structure of Magic Vol.
I. These refer to some of the research that I used to develop
NLP™. Reading these books with a knowledge of what NLP™
is will show that they had something but didn't know what, yet.
I took a few things from these and other places and formalized
them into models which I apply. I would highly recommend reading
those texts referred to the bibliography of The Structure of Magic
Vol. I. Sometimes it seems that NLPers ask stupid questions and
the reason why NLPer's seem to ask stupid questions is because
The Structure of Magic Vol. I is written backwards and doesn't
tell you how to use the Meta Model™ in order to go somewhere.
That's because it was a model of how therapists asked questions.
Try reading chapter 4 from the last distinction to the first.
That is the proper order.
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